


Samsara

by sahem62896



Category: Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Law & Order: SVU, Oz (TV)
Genre: Multi, Redemption, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-03
Updated: 2014-05-03
Packaged: 2018-01-21 19:12:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1560986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sahem62896/pseuds/sahem62896
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The relationship between Chris Keller and Elliot Stabler explained... and also between Shirley Bellinger and Alexandra Eames!  (Story starts right after the 'Exeunt Omnes' episode of OZ)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Samsara

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Luck of the Draw](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/48092) by Kikkimax. 



> Same story as always: I own the rights to nothing... This is for fun.

1\. JACKIE

_"And all I gotta do is open my eyes and see her, the mystery woman..." —Allman Brothers Band_

There was a indeed bright light, but it didn't appear to him at the end of a long, dark tunnel, nor was there a brilliant shimmer that started in the corner of his vision and crescendoed until everything faded into whiteness either. It was more like the flash bulb of a camera going off in his face, and it was just as quick. One minute, Keller saw a handful faces that he recognized hovering over him and Beecher's way above them all with his eyes wide and his mouth agape in a horrible circle as he screamed, and then — ZAP! — there was a moment of blinding radiance that lasted barely longer than a blink. The next thing he saw was a woman who appeared to be in her late forties standing over him with a peculiar smile on her face. She was wearing an ivory colored business suit that covered her from her wrists to her ankles but still accentuated her curves very nicely.

"Would you like some help up, Mr. Keller?" she asked, bending forward a bit and offering him her hand. Her voice was a velvety smooth alto, and both the sound and sight of her reminded Keller of Jaclyn Smith, the lovely actress from _Charlie's Angels_ who had once been the queen of his teenage fantasies... the ones involving women, anyway.

He was feeling quite confused. It was a jarring transition to see her gentle, calm expression above him when, only a second earlier, his vision had been filled with the faces of eight or nine men who all looked shocked and surprised. Hadn't he just flung himself off a twenty-foot railing just a minute ago? He was pretty sure that he had.

"Mr. Keller?" she asked, raising her eyebrows a bit.

"Uh... yeah, I think I would," Keller answered, extending his hand to her after a pause.

No sooner had her slender fingers enclosed around the meat of his hand, Keller found himself hoisted swiftly to his feet. She seemed to have brought him to a standing position without any effort at all on her part. Once up, Keller reached for the back of his head, trying to feel for a lump or a contusion — something that would convince him that he hadn't just awakened from one of those falling dreams he sometimes had. Nothing there. No pain anywhere in his body either. He looked around him. He was still in the Emerald City's main quad but he and the woman who had just picked him up off the floor were the only ones there. With no hacks and no prisoners, it was eerily quiet.

"Um..." he began, not quite sure which question was the appropriate one. _Where am I?_ seemed a little too stupid because it was obvious where he was, and _Aren't I dead?_ was one of those questions to which he wasn't quite sure he wanted to hear the answer. Not yet, anyway.

"Mmm-hmmm?" she asked, the smile giving way to a look that invited him to speak his mind.

He felt confusion draw his eyebrows down as he made one more scan of the empty room, the vacant pods, and the unoccupied guards' station. Even McManus's office on the second floor looked abandoned. "What... are you... doing... here?" Even that question sounded weird to his own ears. Never mind the fact that it had come out in pieces.

It wasn't nearly as weird, however, as her response: "I've come to get you for your next assignment."

"My what?"

She was unfazed by Keller's bewilderment or his question. "Don't worry, Mr. Keller," she said. She took him by the elbow and gave it a gentle tug. "Why don't you just come with me? Everything will be explained soon."

There was nobody around to stop or even witness this beautiful but odd presence leading him out of Em City. And besides, even if he didn't want to go with her where was he going to go and what was he going to do? She barely passed his shoulder, even in the heels she was wearing, but given the ease with which she had collected all six feet and two hundred pounds of him from the floor, he got the strange impression that it was going to be a mistake to try to overpower or outrun her. And where was he going to run to if he tried to do so? Even at maximum capacity, everything could be seen in Em City; it had been designed that way. There was no place to hide and no other inmates around to provide a distraction or camouflage. Even saying no to her seemed a ridiculous idea. It was not so much because she looked like the type of person who wouldn't take no for an answer, but because she would meet such obduracy with a good-natured laugh and ask him if he'd rather just sit here in this abandoned room and twiddle his thumbs instead. Strange as it sounded, a part of him did want to do just that. There was way to much weirdness going on here. But another part, one that was curious to know not only where she was going to take him but also what she was going to do with him when she got him there, had a much louder and demanding voice. As bizarre as this all was, he was also interested to know what kind of assignment this woman had for him. It also didn't hurt that she was easy on the eyes... _very_ easy.

Yielding to her gentle pull, he started walking with her towards the main gates of the quad. Their footfalls echoed in the empty chamber of the main quad. Incredibly, the gates were wide open. No one stood beyond them either. The bench where the fresh fish sat waiting to be admitted into this little corner of Hell was also empty. A hundred years ago, it seemed, Keller had sat at that bench with a cast on his arm pondering the eighty-eight years that lay ahead when he was introduced to a wild-eyed, nursery-rhyme-chanting, handlebar-mustachioed maniac who answered to a name that seemed better suited to some entitled snob residing in a three-floor townhouse on the Upper East Side — Tobias Beecher. The man who answered to that name now was clean-shaven, dressed most often in a black polo shirt, and appeared older and much less imposing than he did back then, but his eyes were still wild... at least they had been as they watched Keller fall backward over that railing. Or at least that's how Keller thought he had remembered it. After all, it had only happened a minute ago... or had it?

Unlike Keller, whose steps were slow and trepidatious, the woman in the white business suit walked briskly with her shoulders back and her head up. Each step conveyed poise and confidence. There was no bounce to her gait, but her hips swayed just enough to be tantalizing. Keller found her quite sexy. He kept trying to imagine her naked or in a string bikini, biting provocatively on her lower lip with one hand plunged deep into her thick crop of long brown hair. However, that crisp, smart attire and the barren halls around the two them thwarted his every attempt. Even so, he couldn't help trying his best to flirt with her. That was how he managed situations like this one where what he needed most was information.

"So uh... you seem to know who I am, but I didn't get your name," he said, his lips curving up into a smile that rendered almost everyone who saw it vulnerable and horny.

She kept walking and didn't even turn to look in his direction. Even so, he noticed that there was a knowing little smile crossing her own features. "Well, since you were thinking that I looked like Jaclyn Smith right before I picked you up off the floor, I guess Jackie would be the right thing to call me."

Keller's eyes went wide and his smile faltered. He stopped dead in his tracks, feeling more afraid than confused for the first time since he saw her. "How the hell did you know that that was what I was thinking?"

Jackie turned to him. The sly smile was still there, but it looked more benign when she was facing him. "Mr. Keller, every client I have had who was over the age of thirty-five has told me that I look like her... especially the men."

Keller loved one thing better than mystery and that was mysterious women who delivered it to him. "Client?" he asked, his own smile resuming its place. "Is that what I am? Your client?"

"Yes, that's what you are."

"Well," he said, approaching her with a saunter that complemented the I'm-just-a-lovable-bad-boy grin, "as your client, I ask that you please call me Chris... Miss Jackie." His voice lowered to just above a whisper. It was the perfect bedroom voice, and it had indeed worked perfectly in the bedroom many, many times. Even he loved the sound of his voice when it came out like that because he knew it was his chief tool to get someone to lower their defenses and bend to his will.

Jackie's smile changed form crafty to intrigued, as if she might be undressing him with her eyes. She lowered her chin a bit. "Chris it will be, then."

Now he felt like a male peacock with its magnificent tail feathers spread. He approached her slowly and offered her his hand. "Nice to meet you," he said in that husky whisper.

She took her hand in his. "A pleasure," she replied, her own voice dropping a notch. Teeth appeared in her grin, and her hand tightened around his... tightened quite a bit, in fact. Just as Keller was starting to realize that her grip was actually starting to hurt, Jackie tipped him a wink. "And Chris," she went on, "if you imagine me in that Playboy centerfold pose again, I'll wipe the floor you."

Keller's smile collapsed. He started to feel woozy and off-center again... then he was outright scared. The hand around his tightened some more and he sucked air through his teeth as he felt his knuckles grinding together. He had completely forgotten that only a few seconds ago, he was believing that it might foolish to try to outmaneuver this woman. It was also becoming clearer with every passing second that his first intuition had been right. She was something more than just a woman.

"This is a business matter, Chris" she declared. Her smile was gone, and while nothing malicious had taken its place, the placid expression that was there now was chilling enough. "We need to treat it as such."

"Got it," he said, groaning a little bit as as the tips of his fingers began to tingle with the loss of blood flow.

Jackie nodded once and released his hand. Once freed from her cast iron grip, he began to shake his wrist. He didn't like being aced out at all. It had happened so infrequently in his life that he had forgotten what it felt like to be the chump. It was not just humiliating; it felt like his balls had been cut off and waved around spitefully in his face. Still, he also knew he had met his match and conceded to the fact that there was one way of doing things — hers.

"You okay?" she asked.

"Yeah," he said, grateful to find that all his fingers still moved. He was also grateful that there was nothing in her question that suggested she might be teasing him. "I'm... uh... I'm sorry." He had never sincerely apologized for behaving like this before, and found both the words and the activity awkward.

Jackie's casual grin returned and she tossed her head back, making her hair rustle round her face. It seemed that her equanimity had returned, though it was highly doubtful to Keller that she had even lost it in the first place. "It's quite alright," she said. "You're not the first client from Oz or Emerald City that I had to subdue." The smile broadened and took on a touch of guilty pleasure. "At least you were... well... romantic in your own way," she added.

Keller shrugged. "I am what I am," he acknowledged.

"For a little while longer," she said.

Keller's brow furrowed. "What do you mean?"

"Like I said before," Jackie replied, "come with me and everything will be explained."

"Explained simply?" he asked, smiling sheepishly. "I'm kind of a dummy, you know."

Jackie saw this for the manipulative trick that it was, but she remained cool. "No more games and no more stalling, Chris," she admonished. "We don't have much time... well, not as you understand it anyway."

Keller closed his eyes, understanding at last there was no way he was going to win. He extended his arm to her and tilted his head. "Lead the way," he said.

Jackie responded with a curt nod. She resumed her model-on-the-runway walk to a door on their left. It was the only closed door in the place, it seemed. She grasped the knob and gave it a twist. The door creaked open and a warm, soft glow like sunlight on a mellow afternoon came pouring in to the bleak waiting area, taking the sharp edges off the corners of the benches and making the walls shimmer in a way they never had. Keller stood there with his mouth hanging open, watching this strange phenomenon. He kept thinking he was going to have to shield his eyes from the glow since he hadn't seen the outside world in what seemed like forever, but the light was friendly and inviting. The vinegary smell of body odor and dried piss that seemed to permeate the atmosphere of Emerald City was carried away and something fresh drifted into the room and into his nostrils. Keller inhaled a huge amount of it and relished the warmth that seemed to fill his being as he drew in his breath.

_Freedom,_ he thought as he closed his eyes. _This is what freedom smells like._

"Chris?"

Keller opened his eyes. Jackie's smile was back again and this time she looked pleased. He looked at the open door and the wonderful light that came through it, then back at Jackie. "Is... Is that... Heaven?"

She laughed a little. "No Chris, it's not," she said. "That's the bad news. The good news, however, is that it's not Hell either." She folded her arms, and tilted her head to the side a bit. "It's also not Oz. So if you want out of here, this is the way."

Keller didn't need to be asked twice, but he still went forward with some hesitation. He stopped at the entrance and looked back over his shoulder to see if Jackie was still there. She was.

"Go on," she encouraged. "I'm right behind you."

Taking a deep breath, and savoring both the wonderful fresh scent of freedom and the comforting glow of the light, Keller stepped past the threshold into the brightness.

 

2\. ELLIOT

_"Look into the mirror, façade or facsimile... " —UK Decay_

The warm glow on the other side of the door _was_ sunlight, and it poured in from a cloudless sky and through the glass walls of the large, elegant office space in which Keller now found himself standing. The carpet was a mild tawny color that absorbed the natural light and made everything seem warmer. Placed here and there were large house plants that provided spots of cool hiatus amidst the vast brown plain beneath them. Private offices formed by frosted glass partitions surrounded two rows of cubicles whose walls stood waist high and were the color of oatmeal. The cubicles' occupants were dressed nicely but comfortably. Keller saw a few men with their neckties loosened, their collars open, and their sleeves rolled up. Three of four of the women had their blazers draped neatly over the backs of their chairs and their high heeled shoes tucked under their desks. There was a dull murmur of white noise as these people typed on their keyboards, talked on their phones, or passed file folders to each other over the low walls of their cubicles with pleasant one word exchanges of 'Thanks.' and 'Sure.' There were a few people walking about, some carrying stacks of paper, others with coffee cups in their hands. It was a busy place, but a low-stress one as well. No one looked overworked, displeased, or lost in a daydream of something loftier.

Keller took in everything he saw around him with his mouth still open in surprise. He wasn't so sure which was stranger, the cavernous main quad of the gloomy and unpopulated Emerald City which he and Jackie had just left or this grand office which was alive with color and activity and had, unknown to any of the inmates, apparently been on the other side of Em City's main entrance all along. He alternated between wanting to laugh at the oddness of it all and wanting to scream in terror at it. Part of it was just because he had never been in a place like this before in his whole life, but another part of him felt certain that he was about to become an unwilling part of whatever was going on in here.

Jackie followed him in and closed the door behind them. Keller watched her do it, and as he heard it click shut, he became convinced that if he tried to open it again he would not find Em City or Oz on the other side anymore. It was gone for good. Keller would have liked to have claimed relief at that moment, but standing there in his grey hoodie and black boots, looking very out of place amidst the finery, Keller felt even more uncomfortable and uncertain. Jackie, on the other hand, fit perfectly into this scheme and looked as calm as ever.

"Where are we?" he asked, finally allowing the question that he had held in reserve to come out of his mouth.

Jackie said, "This is where I work."

Keller didn't like the vague reply, but knew on some level that he wasn't going to get much more from her. "You said everything would be explained," he said, bracing himself for a frightening answer.

"And it will be," she responded. "Simply... and soon."

Keller took in a deep breath. It was still full of that comforting scent of freedom that he had drawn into his lungs before, but it did nothing to soothe the trembling he was starting to feel in his belly and on the soles of his feet.

"Oh Jackie!" someone hailed. "Good, you're back."

The voice belonged to a silver-haired man seated at the cubicle closest to them. He looked as if he had played football in his younger years but was now starting to get a little loose in the cage. He pointed at Keller and raised his eyebrows.

"Is that him?" he asked.

Jackie nodded. "Elliot Stabler."

Keller turned his head so quickly that it would have kept spinning on his neck if his joints and muscles would have allowed it. " _Who?_ " he demanded.

Jackie gave him no answer. Old Sporto got up from his chair, collected a manila file that was about an inch thick from a basket on his desk, and approached them. He took a quick peek at the first page of the folder's contents, then up at Keller, and nodded once himself. "Yep," he said, somehow satisfied. "You're all set."

"Thanks, Curtis."

Curtis beamed at her, and then turned to Keller. "She's the best," he stated, then returned to his cubicle.

Keller turned to look at Jackie, hoping she might explain just what she was the best at doing and who the fuck Elliot Stabler was, but she was silent. She simply opened the folder, scanned the contents for a couple of seconds, then flipped it shut and pointed to an office on the other side of the room.

"This way," she instructed and commenced to walk between the two rows of cubicles. 

Keller followed behind her, watching to see who acknowledged her as she walked down the aisle. People were completely focused on their computer monitors in front of them, or the phones in their hands. They arrived at what he presumed was her office a few moments later. She preceded him inside while Keller stood in the doorway, surveying the terrain. Except for a jar of pens, an in/out basket, and classic desk lamp that had a brass stem and a green ceramic hood, Jackie's enormous cherrywood desk was innocent of clutter, a nameplate, or a even a family photograph. The wall behind her on which her diplomas or credentials would have been proudly displayed, was dominated by a several black and white photographs of New York City that reminded him of the overpriced junk that naïve tourists bought outside the Met and called 'souvenirs'. Facing the desk were two leather chairs whose color was a shade or two darker and redder than the carpet on which they sat. They were turned slightly inward and towards each other as if to invite the people seated there to speak to each other as well as her. On the opposing wall stood a bookcase that seemed to be laden down with a hundred copies of the exact same volume. It was flanked on one side by a ficus that was resplendent with shiny green leaves, and a small water cooler on the other. Outside the massive window to the right was an expanse of blue sky and nothing else. No skyscrapers jabbed at the unending blue, and no clouds or birds drifted by either. In here, the light was natural and soothing as well.

"Come on in," She invited, extending her hand in the direction of the chairs.

Keller had never had a formal job interview before, not in a place like this, anyway. His few attempts at legit work had always been in construction, and any prefatory matters had been attended to in some dingy trailer with questions that required nothing more than 'Yes.' or 'No.' as answers. Taking a seat in one of the chairs that faced Jackie's desk, he imagined that the kind of nervy anticipation he was feeling right then was what those working stiffs in Manhattan felt during those interviews. He watched in silence as Jackie took a seat, placed the folder a few inches in front of her, and folded her hands.

"Chris," she said after a bit, "you know how it is that you ended up here with me, right?"

Keller hated it when people asked him questions to which they already knew the answers. The most annoying experience with such a situation had been the time a TV producer named Lisa Logan had traipsed into Em City with a camera crew and started asking questions about him, his drug usage, his sex life, and Beecher in a way that hinted that she had already researched everything about him that anyone would care to know. He had smirked and answered her questions in a wry, deadpan voice that he hoped communicated what nosy, useless twats he thought the entire fucking bunch of them were. And though he was utterly clueless about who Jackie was, why and how he had ended up being "her client," and what she was going to assign to him, he began to resent her a bit for testing him like this. He found himself deadpanning for her the way he had with the TV bitch.

"Uh... well," he said, looking vacuously at the ceiling, "given that the last thing I saw before you appeared was a bunch of guys looking down on me shortly after I had thrown myself over a second floor railing, I'm assuming that I'm here because I died from that fall."

"Got it in one," she said, cocking her index finger at him.

Keller held up his own index finger. "And," he said, still deadpanning, "you've brought me — your 'client' — here to give me some assignment that has to do with some guy named Elliot Stabler." He turned his head a bit to the side, and smirked. "How'd I do?" he asked her.

"Two for two," Jackie said, matching the angle of his head and his smile almost perfectly. "See? You're not the simple dummy you tried to convince me you are back in Oz."

"I have my moments," he said, sitting back and putting his hands in his lap. He found her remark and her imitation of him insulting. Forget the fact that she nearly pulverized his hand a while ago and read his mind as he mentally stripped her naked and posed her like some fantasy pin-up girl. He was getting irritated with her, and it made him want to fuck with her and her stupid assignment. She had promised some answers, and now it was time for her to deliver.

The angle of Jackie's head and the look on her face returned to normal. "Chris, do you remember when you told Sister Peter Marie that you wanted God to pick you?"

It was another question to which he knew that she already knew the answer, but rather than agitate him, it momentarily disarmed him. Thinking of the little woman who had done her best to reach out to him and all the cruel mind games he had played on her killed any further interest he had in acting dumb for Jackie. "I remember," he said after a pregnant pause.

"Well, this is your time," she said.

Keller snorted. "Oh yeah? He couldn't do it while I was still alive?"

Jackie's gaze sharpened. Though her chair and Keller's were level with each other, she appeared to be looking down on him now. "Chris, I don't need to show you a movie of your behavior and actions while you were alive to make a point here. You know the truth about how you lived your life as well as anyone. You ran scams and Ponzi schemes on every person whose path you crossed since you were fifteen years old. You used copious amounts of drugs and committed violent crimes while high, including the shooting death of a store clerk in Chinatown. You murdered three homosexual men in Chelsea just because you didn't want them to get attached to you. You snapped the necks of at least two men while incarcerated in Oswald — one in revenge and the other because you feared that he might squeal on you to the FBI for the Chelsea killings. You broke the hearts of the three women you married, one of them twice. You also conspired to break the arms and legs of a man with whom you genuinely fell in love, after which you messed up his parole and managed to frame him for your death."

Keller smiled grimly as Jackie itemized his trespasses. "Aw Jesus Christ, Jackie, you're making me seem like such an asshole."

"You _were_ an asshole," she said matter-of-factly. "And with that kind of a record, what earthly good do you think Chris Keller could have been to anyone?"

Guilt was starting to gnaw at his insides, but the anger at being dressed down was rising up in his belly too. "I tried to change lots of times," he began.

"And when it stopped serving you and only you, you gave up on it and went back to doing whatever suited you and your needs," she interrupted, turning her palms upwards.

Keller could tell by the tone of her voice that Jackie wasn't trying to be disparaging, but he felt slighted all the same. She may have had more brains in her little finger than he did in his head, but he wondered if she knew anything about what it had taken to stay alive all those years and about the kill-or-be-killed word of a correctional facility. In there, moral fiber wasn't appreciated like quick wits and a strong survival instinct.

Jackie leaned forward on her desk and looked him right in the eyes. "Despite what you may be thinking right now, I am not coming to you from atop some high horse. Once upon a time, I sat on the other side of a desk like just this while while a man in a business suit read off a list off all the things I had seen and done just to do another line of cocaine — and believe me when I tell you, Chris, that they were things that no woman should ever see or do." She dabbed at a speck of dust on the top of her desk with the pad of her middle finger, snapped a couple of times over a nearby small waste bucket, and then leaned back in her seat with her arms folded. "You see," she continued, "I was one of those lucky party girls in Hollywood with all the right connections, and the best dealer you could ever hope to find. He later turned out to be my pimp, and he paid me with lots of pretty clothes and mountains of Peruvian marching dust. He was also a loan shark, and when I couldn't make money for him selling my ass anymore, I made money for him by collecting what was owed to him." Her gaze sharpened, and her head tilted a bit to the side. "You know what 'taxing' is?"

Keller's eyebrows were up as high as they could go. "You broke people's arms?"

Jackie nodded. "Anything to get more coke up my nose." She leaned in again, and added, "You could have put a tissue into one of my nostrils and pulled it out the other."

Keller was dumbfounded and humbled. The fact that she had plucked his doubts right out of his mind and nullified them was one thing, but her story was also quite remarkable. This broad was tough! "Wow…" he finally said after a bit. He bit his lip and then asked, "You OD-ed?"

Jackie shook her head. "Poisoned. The last few lines I did had been cut with enough Comet cleanser to make the every bathroom at the Bonaventure Hotel sparkle."

Keller was fresh out of smart remarks. "Jesus…" he mumbled. "I'm sorry I ever doubted you."

"Don't be. You have every right to know all that, given the circumstances."

Keller looked at the floor and thought for a minute about what Jackie had said when she had first appeared in front of him. "So… those circumstances are that you have been given me as an assignment, right?" he surmised.

Jackie's fingertips met below her chin. "Not exactly," she said. "I was given assignments like the one I am going to hand to you when I sat on the other side the desk. Over time and after enough assignments, I worked myself up to a position that you might call a case manager. You are my _case_ , and it is my job to see that you satisfactorily complete the assignments that have been assigned to you."

"Assigned by who?"

Jackie looked at the ceiling for a second and separated her hands. "Some choose to call it God. Other's call it The Universe. Some call it Destiny or Fate." Her fingertips came together again and she smiled at Keller. "Whatever name you assign to it is never quite accurate, but that doesn't matter. What does matter is that it likes balance in all things, and the amount of chaos that Chris Keller created needs to be balanced out."

"By me?"

"By you."

"And that's where Elliot Stabler comes in?"

She picked the folder up off her desk and handed it to Keller. "Exactly."

Keller took the folder from her. Although he was doubtful he could do anything for the poor bastard who was unlucky enough to be assigned to him, he was at least curious to see who the chump was.

"So what's the deal?" he asked snickering both in nervousness and doubt as he opened the folder . "Am I going to be his guardian angel or something?"

All laughter stopped when he saw the first document in the folder.

The man in the picture was _himself_ … and he was dressed as a New York City cop.

"Actually," Jackie said as Keller looked at the photo with his eyes widening, "you're going to be him."

 

3\. HOLLY

_"The world fought back, punished me for my sins…" —Social Distortion_

"This is a joke, right?"

Jackie shook her head.

"A goddamn cop?"

"Not just any cop," Jackie said, leaning back and tenting her fingers again. "Detective Elliot Stabler is part of a team on NYPD's 16th Precinct that investigates rapes, sexual assault, crimes involving the children or the elderly, and often murders related to such cases."

"Oh God," Keller groaned.

"You should have no trouble seeing why this assignment was chosen for you," Jackie continued.

It was true; he had no trouble understanding why it was chosen for him, but a lifelong aversion to the law was screaming out in protest in his heart. He slammed the cover shut on the picture of his own face and offered the folder back to Jackie. "What else have you got?"

She didn't take it back from him. "For you? Nothing else."

"C'mon," he begged.

"Sorry," Jackie said, "but that is what you are getting."

"And if I don't take it?"

"You have to," she replied without missing a beat.

Keller lowered his hand. A dent started to form in the folder under his thumb. "You've gotta be fucking kidding me!" he said between his teeth.

"Absolutely not."

He was getting infuriated by how quickly Jackie was shutting down his protests. "There's nothing simpler?"

Jackie pointed at the folder. "That's an entry level assignment."

He scowled at her and tossed the folder back on to her desk. It skidded to a stop less than an inch away from her side of the table. "Yeah well, maybe I'm not good enough for you and your fucking boss," he said, hoping it would crush her a bit.

It didn't work. "You are," she said.

Keller snorted in outrage. "How the hell can you say that? I mean, you just sat there a second ago telling me all the ways in which I was a piece of shit. Now you're telling me I can be a cop, and that that's going to make it all better with God or Buddha or whomever the fuck it is up there giving your orders to you."

"Yes," Jackie said, completely undeterred. "That's exactly what I am telling you."

Keller shook his head. "And I'm telling you you've got the wrong guy," he informed her. "I can't do any of that shit."

"Not now," Jackie said, "but you'll learn it."

"I'll learn it?" he asked. It was clear he was dubious.

"Mmm-hmmm," she answered. "See, you're not going to just dive right in and start being a sex crimes detective, Chris. You're going to get your education the way everyone else does... right from the beginning."

Keller stared into the corner just past her desk with eyebrows knit together. Jackie was telling the truth, he knew, but not as straightforwardly as she could have been. A second or two later, the real meaning of what she had said finally hit him.

"You're telling me I'm going to be reborn as him," he said.

"Give the man a cigar," Jackie said and started to applaud.

Keller burst into laughter. "Oh shit," he finally said after the worst of the fit subsided, "I can't fucking believe it."

"Why is that so hard to grasp?" Jackie asked. "Chris, think about all the times you wished you could have had a second chance at life. You know that I know you've wished you could have one. Now you're getting a chance to right all those wrongs and do so with a clean soul and none of your history weighing you down. It's a hell of a deal."

"A clean soul," he repeated, shaking his head and allowing one more sarcastic laugh to push its way out of his mouth. "Lady, you're assuming I even have one to clean."

One of Jackie's eyebrows went up, and the sly smile returned to her face. "Silly rabbit," she teased, "you think that's actually you sitting in that chair across from me, wearing those clothes, and breathing this air?" She put her forearms on the desk and leaned forward as much as the desk would allow. "The man you saw in the mirror for thirty-eight years is now lying in a locker belonging to the State of New York with a tag on his toe and a sheet over his face." She let a couple of silent seconds go by, then added, "So now what do you think?"

Once again, all laughter had stopped. "Got an answer for everything, Jackie, don't you?" he finally said after a while.

"Not my first trip to the zoo," she replied, sitting back in her chair and crossing one of her legs over the other. She looked as if she were about to blow on her fingernails and then dust them on her lapels, but she didn't. "Look," she said after a moment, "no soul is one hundred percent bad, not even yours. You may have done some pretty terrible things, but you did have your nobler moments, especially where Tobias Beecher was concerned. Trying to reconcile with him after you broke his arms, for example. Taking the fall for Hank Schillinger's murder so that Beecher didn't foolishly fall on his own sword — misguided, but noble nonetheless. Those few occasions where your relationship with him wasn't turbulent and brutal, you acted with real, unfeigned love."

Jackie crossed her arms and went on, talking about how his gift for strategy which he had used to fleece numerous suckers would be recycled and put to good use in the interrogation room, that his drive and tenacity was going to serve him well as Elliot Stabler, and how even Keller's ability to be charming would be of comfort to traumatized children. Keller tried to listen, but after a while it just sounded like the incoherent noises made by Charlie Brown's teacher. His thoughts were now on about Toby. He had loved Toby, but he had lost him too. It had happened long before he had leapt to his death. Even setting up the death Vern Schillinger, the blackhearted Nazi who had terrorized and abused Toby since day one, had been in vain. Now as Jackie's voice dwindled into background noise in his ears, he thought about how, in their final conversation, he sounded like his nose was plugged up as if he had been crying as he begged Keller to leave him alone and let him live... how Toby tired and worn out he had started to look after just five minutes of talking... how horrified Toby looked as he watched Keller fall back over that railing to his death... how wretched his scream had been when he realized that Keller was a goner...

"Are you listening to me?" she asked sharply.

"Yes, I'm listening," he lied. "I'm just... trying to..."

"Look, I'm sorry you don't like this," she said, "but when we ask God for help, very few of us get a say in how he answers that prayer. You, my friend, actually getting exactly what you asked for."

"In other words, 'stop sniveling and take the fucking assignment'... right?"

"In a nutshell, yes."

The ring of a cell phone silenced them both.

"Excuse me for a second," Jackie said, reaching into her blazer and pulled the noisy little thing out of an inner pocket. She checked the number and flipped the phone open with a flick of her thumb. "This is Jackie," she said. There was a short pause. "Yes..." Another pause followed, during which her eyes met Keller's. "Yes, he's right here."

Keller flinched a bit and hoped that she wouldn't pass the phone to him. She didn't. Instead, she sat there, nodding slowly as she listened to the caller say whatever it was he or she had to say. It was a much longer pause than before, and when it was over, most of the color had drained from her face.

"I see," she finally said. "Do I need to tell him that?"

Keller's jaw loosened as he watched Jackie close her eyes and nod once again. Now his curiosity was piqued. Was it her boss — God or whomever the fuck was running this circus — telling her that she had indeed gotten the wrong guy for the Stabler job and that she needed to let him go? More than just a small part hoped that was exactly what was taking place in this conversation.

"Alright," Jackie said after a very heavy sigh. "Thanks for letting me know." Another beat of silence passed. "Oh yeah, I can handle it."

Keller was filled with irreverent glee. _Bad news, bitch,_ he thought, _I'm not your boy after all._

"Sure," she said after a second or two and then shut the cell phone with a deft snap of her wrist. She looked at it briefly and then tossed it on the desk as if she were disgusted with it. She closed her eyes and pinched the spot where they connected with the bridge of her nose.

"Shit," she muttered.

"Something wrong?" Keller asked wryly.

She didn't look up. "Yep."

"Big guy changed his mind, huh?" A winning smile started to form on his face.

"I wouldn't get my hopes up if I were you," she said, her voice making a very small but noticeable change from crestfallen to annoyed.

The smile stopped about halfway up. The feeling of triumph drained away with alarming speed, and a small but extremely warm knot began to form between his lungs as he realized the cavalry had not come to his rescue after all.

"Well then, what are you supposed to tell me?"

Jackie let go of her nose and sniffed as if she were holding back a tear. When she opened her eyes, Keller saw that they had gotten wet and glassy. "I'm supposed to give you the newest reason why you have to take this assignment, and I'd rather be on fire than do it."

The hot spot in his chest began to burn. The initial feeling of nervousness that he had had when he first sat down across from her desk returned but brought with it no curiosity or excitement about forthcoming possibilities. Instead, it was accompanied by unadulterated fear.

"What is it?" he asked.

"That call just came from a colleague of mine whose cases are all little children," Jackie said, taking her hand away from her face and wrapping it around the other one. "She has Holly Beecher with her now."

The fear grabbed hold of the hot spot in his chest and squeezed it until it popped, making its acidic contents spread through his chest. "Toby's daughter?"

"Yes," she said in a voice that was only a speck or two above a whisper. "Collected her from the side of a road near the NJ Transit station in East Orange with her wrists bound in duct tape a sweat sock stuffed in her mouth and duct taped to her face. The sock was soaked with chloroform. At their home in Millburn, Toby's grandparents were found bound with the same duct tape and shot at point-blank range and killed. The baby, Harry, is gone. They don't know where he is."

Keller's heart sank into his boots. He tried to swallow the obstruction that had grown in his throat, but it wouldn't go down. He began to shiver despite the fact that the heat inside him had grown so intense that a thin layer of sweat had formed between him and his clothes. Lips and tongue were forced into action. "The.... the Aryans?" he finally asked.

"The Aryans," Jackie agreed. "Apparently, they had already plotted to move on Beecher after he killed Vern Schillinger, but a chemical spill in the mailroom where they all were working killed them all. When word got out to the Brotherhood's supporters outside.... well, since they couldn't find out where they transferred Beecher and the rest of the prisoners to, they went after his family."

"And Toby?" He was terrified to ask the question, and more terrified to hear the answer.

"Lost his mind," Jackie said, looking away from him. "Querns delivered the news to him shortly after they charged him with your murder. He was taken back to his cell in shock, and when they found him at the evening nose count, he was unconscious with a huge contusion on his forehead. He had apparently rammed his own head into the wall of his cell and given himself a massive subdural hematoma."

Keller gulped. "He's dead too?" The sound of his own cracking voice was awful.

"Comatose," Jackie answered.

Shame joined the team that was destroying Keller's insides and laid to waste whatever was left. He had been the one that had swapped Beecher's prop knife with a real one during the prison performance of _Macbeth_. He had been the one that had arranged for the anthrax to be delivered to the mailroom so that the Nazi pieces of shit couldn't retaliate against Toby for killing their piece of shit leader. And worst of all, he had dived over the railing to his death believing that if Querns could rule something as obvious as Schillinger's death as an accident, then they wouldn't waste one second making a decision on Killer Keller and that Toby would be exonerated. As the information started to sink in, a memory of sitting with Beecher in their pod discussing how to get rid the swastika that Schillinger had burned into Toby's flesh came back to him. Toby had been dead set against Keller's plan because it involved more branding and some prison hooch that was going to be used as an anesthetic Keller. True, the hooch had actually been a tool in a ploy Schillinger was concocting to destroy Toby from the inside out, beginning with his desire to quit drinking and drugging, but that didn't matter. What mattered was what Keller had said when he realized that Toby was not going to drink it for anything:

_That's the problem with me; I never think anything through._

Yes, that was the problem alright. The same words had clanged in his mind after he had fully realized that he had just broken the arms and legs of a man he loved for that piece of shit Nazi who had come to collect on the protection he had provided to Keller as a seventeen year old prisoner in Lardner. Now they were not just clanging back but roaring at a deafening volume in his mind. If he hadn't been so determined to save his own ass from the FBI, then he could have stayed with Keller and done what he could have to protect him... or comfort him... or something.

Jackie's words echoed in his mind: _And when it stopped serving you and only you, you gave up on it and went back to doing whatever suited you and your needs._

Now she had really squeezed him, and it hurt worse than whatever he had done to his hand when they had met. But he knew he fucking deserved it. This was all his fault.

His own words to Sister Pete followed Jackie's: _See, I'm a piece of shit. I am worthless... as bad as they come._

And that was all it took.

For the first time ever, Keller burst into tears of remorse. He cried until his whole body shook. If there had been something within arm's reach, he would have seized it and flung it at the glass partition that separated Jackie's office from the cubicles on the other side. He buried his face into his hands and screamed in utter sorrow.

Jackie reached into a drawer in her desk and pulled a couple of facial tissues from a box that was inside it. She got up, walked around her desk to Keller's chair and offered them to him. He groped blindly for them and got them on the second try.

"Chris, do you want me to leave you alone for a bit?" she asked.

He couldn't even form words, though he desperately wanted to do so. Instead, a strangled moan came from his mouth as he nodded.

"Okay," she whispered and solemnly left the room. As she walked down the aisle between the cubicles, she saw Curtis leaning back in his chair looking concerned. She held up her hand and mouthed the words 'it's okay' as she drew nearer. Curtis nodded once and went back to his work. 

 

4\. CHRIS

_"Hush now don't you cry, wipe away the teardrop from your eye…" —Queensrÿche_

Jackie rounded a corner and went into a small galley kitchen to her left. Once inside, she took a glass from a cupboard and filled it with water from the spigot in the refrigerator door. She walked to the other side of the kitchen and leaned back against the counter. There really was no need to hurry. She knew that by the time she finished drinking it, Keller would be down to sniffs and hitches and would finally be beaten into a state of reasonableness. So she took her time. There were other things about this assignment that were occupying her thoughts, but right now the priority was getting him to take it. There might still be still be the need for some more conversation, but she figured that with this new information, Keller would see more than just the wisdom in doing so. Hopefully, he would actually feel a sense of purpose in taking it too. She doubted very highly that after hearing all that she had said he would refuse it anymore; she doubted if anyone could after that.

After coaxing the last drops of water from her glass, she rinsed it out and put it upside down in the drying rack. She ran her hands through her hair and pulled her blazer taut over her frame. Back to her office she went, bracing herself for some more of Keller's emotional storm. At the doorway, she paused and observed the scene with a slowly growing smile.

Keller was indeed down to sniffs and hitches and his eyes were still moist, but he was seated and quiet. In his left hand was a small paper cup of water which he had gotten from the cooler in the back of the room. Spread out on his lap was the folder containing the information about Elliot Stabler. The hand not containing the cup was thumbing through the pages. Keller scrubbed at his eyes every so often as he read, but he was reading it and clearly absorbing it.

Jackie tapped on the glass wall with her fingernail. Keller looked up.

"Hey," she said quietly.

Keller held up the little paper cup. "I hope you don't mind that I helped myself," he said.

"Not at all," she answered.

Keller looked down at the contents of the folder, chewed on his lip for a second, and then looked back at her. "He's a... he's a good man, isn't he? This Elliot?"

Jackie nodded. "Very good."

"Good cop too?"

"One of the best case closure rates in the NYPD."

"Yeah," he said looking back at the folder and tapping the stack of papers. "I saw that, but I mean.... he's the 'good cop' too, right?"

Jackie walked back into her office and took the seat opposite Keller's instead of returning to her desk. "Between him and his partner, Olivia, he's the tougher and more stubborn one. However, his commitment to justice is solid."

"Justice," Keller whispered.

"Chris..." she began.

"Jackie," he said, cutting her off, "you don't have to say anything more to convince me. I just need to know one thing."

"What is it?"

His lower lip began to tremble and he bit it. The subtle shaking shifted to the corner of his eye and and he screwed them both shut for a second to halt it. When he opened them again, a tear spilled over the lower lid.

"Will I... ever see him again?"

The look on his face was endearing and she resisted the urge to caress his cheek. She shook her head very slightly. "You won't."

Keller closed his eyes and shook his own head. "Shit."

"You also won't even know that he existed... or that Christopher Keller ever did either," she told him. "It's like I said before, Chris. You get a clean slate without any of the burden of your history dragging you down. That includes your history with him."

A very small smile touched the corners of Keller's mouth. "A clean _soul_ was what you said."

Jackie smiled back. "Yes, I did say that. You're right."

"You also said it was a hell of a deal," he said.

"I did say that too," she agreed.

Keller drew in a deep breath and let it go. He raised his eyebrows and turned to her once more. "Well," he said after a beat of silence, "when do I start?"

Jackie's smile broadened. She took hold of his hand and squeezed it, gently this time.

Keller squeezed back.

* * * *

There was a bit more briefing to go through after that, but it went much quicker than either of them had anticipated. Jackie never returned to her seat behind the desk, choosing instead sit in the chair across from him while she answered all of his questions. Her answers were prompt and simple, just as she had promised. Keller took each piece of information with a nod. There were clearly some bits of what she said that he didn't like, but Jackie noticed that he would laugh quietly and grimace as he processed her answers this time.

When Keller ran dry, he closed the folder and bounced the spine of it on his knees. "I'm getting nervous now," he admitted.

"I know," Jackie said. "I felt the exact same way after I got my first assignment."

"What was your first assignment?" he asked.

"Mine?"

Keller nodded. The smile on his face differed greatly from the one he had thus far relied upon to render someone susceptible to his charms and sex appeal.

"You're going to laugh at me," she said.

"Oh, now you have to tell me," he charged.

Jackie's face twisted as if she had sunk her teeth into a lemon, then cleared into a smile that was both embarrassed and prideful. "Credit counselor," she said after a bit.

Keller didn't just laugh; he pointed and laughed. Jackie nodded and took it with a roll of her eyes.

"Oh, I fucking love it!" he crowed.

"Poetic justice, huh?" she said with a shrug. "I guess I was supposed to learn how to help people settle their debts the appropriate way."

"I would have thought a nurse on..."

"An orthopedic ward?" she cut in.

"Yeah!"

"Would you believe I did that too?" she asked raising her eyebrows.

"You're fucking kidding!" he exclaimed.

"Not even a bit," she admitted, joining in his laughter. 

"Well, doesn't God have a sense of humor," he commented.

"He does," she said.

There was a soft knock on the glass. They both looked up and saw Curtis standing at the door.

"Jackie," he said, "it's time."

Keller looked at the man in the doorway, then at the folder in his hands, and then back at Jackie. "Do I have to give this back to you, or will I have something to read on the bus?"

She reached out her hand. "I have to take it back now."

Keller nodded, swallowed, and put it in her hand. She leaned towards her desk slid it across the top until it stopped in almost the exact same place where it hand landed when Keller had thrown it back at her. That moment now seemed like eons ago to both of them.

Keller stood up, wiped his palms across his face and then on the front of his trousers. "Well? How do I look for my first day?" he asked.

Jackie stood up, reached for the zipper of his hoodie, and pulled it up until it was over his heart. "Now you look ready," she said said, and winked at him.

He laughed, and then his eyebrows met in the middle of his face. "Will I ever see you again?" he asked, looking at her and seeing much more than the TV actress he fantasized about as a bullheaded teenager.

Jackie looked up at the ceiling then back at Keller. "Anything's possible," she answered.

"I hope you'll be the one that gives me my next assignment after this," he said.

"Let's just get through this one first," she said, tapping him once on the zipper of his hoodie.

Keller understood and nodded.

"Chris?"

"Yeah?"

"Nobody ever told you they believed in you did they?"

Keller's eye twitched as felt that warm little ball form behind his chest again. "No," he whispered.

Jackie drew near to him and put her arms around him. The fireball behind his sternum extinguished itself with a subtle pop. His arms went around her and he held her close. It was another first for him — the first hug he had ever given without ulterior motive. He discovered that he loved how much more satisfying it felt. After a few seconds, Jackie pulled away from him and took his hands in her face, directing his eyes right to hers. God, she was beautiful!

"I believe in you."

He would have kissed her if he could have, but something held him back. He found he was okay with that too.

"Thank you," he said.

"You're welcome," she answered, releasing his head. "Now go get 'em."

"I will."

Keller let Jackie go and walked around the chairs to the door. He was surprised to discover that the usual swagger he walked with had not gone away, but he was surprised to discover that now he felt like he had the right to walk that way too. He met Curtis in the doorway and paused.

"You're right, man," Keller said to him. "She's the best." 

 

5\. CURTIS

_"Talkin' 'bout you and me and the games people play…" —Inner Circle_

"How're you doing?"

Jackie looked up from her notepad and smiled wanly. She picked up her cell phone from the top of her desk and shook it like a rattle. "You were right on time as always, Curtis," she said.

"So he bought the whole story about Beecher and his family, huh?" he said, coming in to her office and taking a seat in the chair Keller had occupied before.

"Hook, line, and sinker," she said, slipping her cell phone back into the breast pocket of her blazer. "Did he get off okay?" she asked.

"Yep."

"Good," she said. She tented her fingers again and her face took on a concerned expression. "Now, you know I don't believe in jinxes, but just to make sure..."

"Not to worry," Curtis reassured her. "Beecher is still safe in protective custody at Lardner."

"The charges for Keller's murder?"

Curtis spread his hands apart with the palms down. "Cleared. A guard saw Keller kiss Beecher and tell him that he loved him before he went over that rail. That was the end of that."

"And the family?"

"Safe in Europe, probably watching Holly hold little Harry's hands as he takes his first steps."

She was satisfied. She folded her arms and rocked back in her chair. "Good."

"So why are you sitting there with a face long enough to step on?" he asked, crossing his legs.

She shook her head. "I don't like using guilt and subterfuge to get someone to take their assignment," she admitted.

Curtis spread his hands. "Hey, you and I both read what the Big Boss had to say about this one."

"I know," she agreed without heat.

"If memory serves, His exact words were: 'Do whatever it takes to get him to take the assignment.'"

"Yeah, but did we absolutely have to resort to playing by Keller's rules?" she asked.

"It really doesn't matter now, Jackie," he reassured her. "You did the job."

"Mmm-hmm."

"And hey," he added, "it's like you tell every client you deal with: what He likes best is balance. Maybe part of balancing out Keller's wreckage was giving him a taste of his own medicine."

She pursed her lips and raised her eyebrows. "That sounds like hiding a bad motive under a good one," she said.

Curtis loved it when she gave him that look. It reminded her of the first night he had seen her on Hollywood Boulevard. She was clearly a coke-addled mess, but when a john had tried to talk her down from her normal price and she had made that same face, Curtis had known right then that she could make huge bucks for him. All it was going to take was enough nose candy and enough pretty toys to keep her from realizing just how much he was skimming off of her income. A week later, when he had seen her kick the shit out of a guy who tried to haul her into an alley and take what he wanted, he knew she'd still be of use to him as a collector even after her money maker gave out.

"Sometimes the ends do justify the means, kiddo," he said.

Her duck face gave way to a warm smile. He had called her that when she was his bitch. Now she found it endearing instead of demeaning. A lot of it had to do with the fact that she knew the wreckage between them was being balanced out through his work as her assistant.

"I suppose you're right," she said after a bit.

"And hey," he said pointing a finger at her and smiling broadly, "at least this one wasn't as dramatic as the time we tried to get Shirley Bellinger to take her assignment as Eames. Remember how much fun we had then?"

She rolled her eyes and laughed. "This was a cake walk compared to that time," she said.

"But we got that one taken care of too," he reminded her. "Like I said to Keller, you're the best."

She held up her finger. "No," she said, " _we're_ the best."


End file.
